A 0.55THz Y-Vector Network Configured Beam Steering Phased Array in CMOS Technology

A Y-vector oscillator network is devised to configure (sub)-mm-wave/terahertz (THz) beamforming systems with minimized footprint and energy consumption. It requires no traditional adjustable phase shifter at multi-channel front end which usually suffer from high insertion loss at these frequencies. A compact (1.4mm²) CMOS 1×4 Beam Steering Phased Array (BSPA) based on this network is validated at 0.55THz with ±30° steering angle range. This is the first monolithic BSPA reported beyond 0.5THz.